All the while, the light hovered above us and a little ahead of us, my signpost through the treachery of the swamp. And the night dropped upon us with that terrifying quickness it can possess only within deep greenery. At Bayard’s orders I took the lead as the guide. Walking at my side, Brithelm carried one of the torches, and Agion brought up the rear carrying the other. Bayard led Valorous and walked between the lights, now wearing his full suit of armor, which creaked loudly and weighed him down in the soft ground of the swamp. He must have foreseen the possibility of a pitched battle taking place at the spot to which I was leading them, and he wanted to be dressed for the occasion.
What distressed me the most was that Brithelm was coming with us. What the Scorpion had in mind for our little party, I couldn’t guess, but my innocent brother did not deserve my treachery. But he was intent on accompanying us. My brother was along for the duration.
Always, the green, unhealthy phosfire danced a few yards in front of me, guiding us all toward the encampment and who knew what destiny.
When, ahead of us, I smelled woodsmoke and heard the bleat of a goat, I stopped and took stock. I searched my history there at the edge of the encampment, ankle-deep in wet mud. Secretly, quickly, I drew the Calantina from my pocket and cast the red dice in my hand. Sign of the Adder again. I was being told something, but I could not figure it out.
Brithelm laid his hand on my shoulder. I started, then turned to find him staring at me, face filled with worry and concern.
“What ails you, little brother?”
“Ails me? Why, nothing, Brithelm.” I looked behind me cautiously: Bayard was soothing an increasingly skittish Valorous.
Suddenly, the sound of shouts and shrill cries burst from the clearing ahead of us. Bayard drew his sword, grabbed me as I tried to run back up the trail, and cast me to the ground.
“Draw your sword, Galen!” he ordered softly and urgently, his teeth clenched. “By the gods, you’ve enlisted for this one.”
Yanking me to my feet, he carried me bodily under his left arm into the clearing, clutching his sword in his right. I heard Agion snort behind us, heard Brithelm say something and Bayard answer, “Just stay under cover and hold the horses, Brithelm.” Then I was blinded by the strange, artificial daylight of flame and phosfire.
There were twelve of them I could count, and I counted quickly. After their initial outburst, the satyrs regrouped under the cloudy platform—whether it was the house or the Scorpion’s throne hidden by the image of the house I could not tell. The goat-men moved in and out of the shadows, their cries and calls mingling one with another into a low but threatening murmur. Most of them had bows, some of them short, wicked-looking spears.
“I shall take the eight on the left, Sir Bayard,” Agion shouted. “Thou and thy squire may have the four on the right.” And he charged.
It was the kind of division of labor I liked. Now I could only hope Bayard was planning on taking the other four all by himself.
I hoped so even more devoutly when the clouds above the satyrs began to clear. For above them sat the Scorpion on his throne. As the satyrs nocked bows, set themselves to hurl spears, their leader reached into the folds of his black cape and drew out something shiny, something flickering. It was a pendant of sorts, from this distance as clear and as shining as a crystal, which he dangled casually from his left hand, swinging it softly through the air.
While his troops prepared for battle, the commander’s total attention was not on the conflict unfolding, but upon the bauble in his hand. For why shouldn’t he sit there, playing casually with glittering trinkets? His satyrs outnumbered us three to one—six to one if you counted the fighting worth of the Pathwardens—and it was obvious that . . .
“Don’t look at the pendulum,” Brithelm urged beside me, having left Valorous and the pack mare to their own devices and joined us in the clearing.
“See to the horses, blast you!” Bayard cried, and I forgot the warning, the pendulum, and the Scorpion himself, as the volley of arrows and spears was upon us.
I was still lying under Bayard’s feet when a big satyr drew his bow and sent an arrow flying in my direction. I could see the yellow of the feathers on the fletching, but I could do nothing but try to scramble to my feet. But just before the arrow struck, as it certainly would have struck, as I was growing rapidly to believe it would strike, Bayard’s large, well-armored sword arm moved into its path and deflected it into the ground in front of us.
Beside me, I heard Agion grunt, and a quick glance told me he carried a satyr’s spear in the fleshy part of his arm. All of a sudden I feared for his largeness, which had seemed only an advantage before. Now, under fire, he was just a big, stupid target.
The biggest, but not the most stupid. Or so it seemed as Brithelm suddenly burst past us and headed at a trot for the throne and the satyrs. Arrows sailed around him, the closest tearing through his cloak on their way to lodge harmlessly in the ground. Bayard dropped me and started for my brother, but it was too late—Brithelm was well past him, nor was there any question of pursuit, since Bayard was having trouble staying on his feet under the weight of all that armor.
“If it’s not one Pathwarden it’s another!” he sputtered, then sank to his knees, watching along with the rest of us as my brother rushed cheerfully towards the Scorpion.
The lines of the satyrs parted weirdly in front of my brother, as though the nasty-looking armed creatures were reeds in the swamp he was pushing aside in search of a trail. Some of them not only moved, but vanished entirely at Brithelm’s approach. Beside him, where satyrs had once bristled with menace and weapons, several goats grazed calmly, scarcely noticing any of us.
That was enough for Bayard. All of a sudden, he moved lightly, gracefully. He looked back at me, where I was sprawled in the swamp mud, beginning again to dig for cover, and spoke quietly but assuredly.
“Get up at once, Galen, and follow your brother. The army we stand against is peopled with illusion. There is nothing dangerous in this clearing. Do you understand? Nothing dangerous in this clearing.”
The evidence was against him, I figured. But he gazed at me so unflinchingly, so sternly, that I feared going against his will far more than I feared any satyr.
What was more, illusory or not, the satyrs were having a rough time with my comrades. Agion grabbed two of them by their wooly napes and battered their heads together, as though he were playing hairy horned cymbals. The swamp resounded with a hollow, cracking sound, and the satyrs fell unconscious. Laughing, the centaur rushed at two more of them, who stood cowering beneath the Scorpion’s throne.
With his sword drawn, Bayard walked calmly through the midst of the satyrs toward the platform where the Scorpion was seated. The satyrs encircled him, shrieking and hopping like carrion birds around something that is dying, but none of them got near him. One lunged at him with a sinister-looking long knife, but Bayard parried the weapon, sent it skittering across the floor of the clearing, kicked the satyr aside, and kept walking. Indeed, mere looks from Bayard seemed to stop the rest of their attacks, as the satyrs snarled, brayed, and sidled away from him.
It was something out of a story.
I scrambled to my feet and ran after my brother, who was standing beneath the base of the platform. Satyrs had begun to surround him.
I looked toward Agion, who was occupied, juggling two more satyrs, and then to Bayard, who was still yards away from my brother. Neither of them would reach Brithelm in time. I started to call out, with no earthly idea what good that would do, except that it was something to do, and then stopped, gaping in my tracks. For Brithelm had raised his arms and was now rising slowly through the air, borne on the wind, perhaps, except there was no rustle of leaves, no movement of branches. He rose head and shoulders, then waist and ankles above the milling satyrs, whose weapons slashed harmlessly about him.